AIR TRANSPORT
Air Canada
postpones
767 options
MONTREAL
Air Canada has postponed
indefinitely its options on six
Boeing 767s.
The airline attributes its
decision to poor market
conditions prevailing at
present, and to the country's
general recession, as well as to
financial reasons. An Air
Canada spokeswoman says
that the airline has already
made substantial route
cutbacks and has reduced
frequencies on several routes.
When market conditions
improve the carrier will be
better placed to turn options
into firm orders, she says.
The Canadian flag carrier
currently has four 767s in
service with two more sched
uled for this year. It has a firm
order for eight, and in addi
tion had 18 options which are
broken down into three
batches of six.
Air Canada placed a
$200,000 deposit for each of
the six 767s, but an airline
spokesman says that Air
Canada will not forfeit the
deposit. Instead it will be
applied to the next batch of
six options. The next option
decision must be taken in
January 1984 for six aircraft
to be delivered in 1986 and
1987. If the airline does not
convert its options into orders
on the next batch of six in
January, this downpayment
would be forfeited.
DC series is 50
LONG BEACH
McDonnell Douglas' DC
series aircraft is 50 years old
this July. Half a century ago a
large crowd gathered in Santa
Monica, California, to watch
the maiden flight of the DC-1,
and "the dawn of modern air
travel".
The idea for the DC-1 was
conceived by Trans Continen
tal and Western Air eleven
months earlier in August
1932. Both airlines required
an all-metal monoplane with
a performance substantially
better than any of the
airliners then in service.
Air Portugal became a Boeing 737 operator for the first time last month
Rombac wants foreign sales
BUCHAREST
"Our aircraft industry sorely
needs dollars", states Mircea
Costescu, deputy managing
director of Romania's CNIAR
Foreign Trading Enterprise
(CNIAR's own export/import
organisation), "and hence we
would like to sell four models
of the first series One-Elevens
abroad. We have already been
negotiating with several
developing countries' airlines,
but have yet to arrive at a
deal". He is talking about
Romanian licence-manufac
ture of Rombac One-Eleven
airliners.
Eugene Smirnov, chief
engineer at CNIAR's Baneasa
aircraft factory near Bucha
rest, talks about the future.
"We are optimists. Contrary
to original projections, today
we are convinced that the
15th Rombac One-Eleven
will consist 100 per cent
of Romanian-made parts.
Admittedly, initial reliance on
imported parts—and thus the
resultant cost factor—has
been very high. But we are
beginning to make headway
with the production and
incorporation into our early
models of local products. And
anyway, this is a programme
which reaches way beyond the
confines of our aircraft indus
try. It is the cornerstone of
technology transfer."
The 12th model will carry
Turbomecanica engines—
Speys made in Romania
under a Rolls-Royce licence.
Since the Spey will contra
vene Icao noise regulations by
1986, the whole Rombac pro
gramme appears to depend on
Rolls-Royce going ahead with
production of the Tay and
being able to make it available
to CNIAR. But Costescu takes
both for granted, confidently
expecting to break into both
Third World and Comecon
markets and to "make 80-100
Rombac One-Elevens over the
next 20 years".
Comecon carriers are by no
means uninterested, provid
ing that CNIAR can build up
the level of customer support
needed, a regular, safe supply
of parts and spares, the tech
nology base for big repairs,
and service engineer and pilot
training. But they want to see
a proven track record in all
these aspects and, above all,
they want the Tay and its fuel-
efficiency and 500km added
range. Without that, they
argue, the $15 million asking
price for the Rombac One-
Eleven is too high, even if it
can be paid for in trading
roubles or barter.
"Look at it this way," says
an executive of a satellite
country's national carrier,
"the Russians have almost
trebled the price of the TU-
154—a bigger-category, if
much less fuel-efficient aero
plane than the Rombac even
with the Spey—in the past
four years, raising it from
1-9 million to 4-87 million
trad-ing roubles. But you can
still buy three 154s for the
price of one Rombac, and it
would take 12 years to amor
tise the differential in fuel
costs".
Aeroflot
flies into
Buenos Aires
MOSCOW
Aeroflot has strengthened its
presence in South America
with the recent introduction
of weekly flights from
Moscow to Buenos Aires.
The Soviet flag carrier,
which already flies to Lima,
Peru, is operating the route
every Sunday via Budapest
and Dakar with 11-62 air
craft. Aeroflot's new service
comes after five weeks of
negotiations between top-
level delegations from the
USSR and Argentina. It
is understood that the
Falklands war between Great
Britain and Argentina last
year was a major factor in
securing a second air ser
vice to South America by
Aeroflot.
Aeroflot's route structure
now spans 117 destinations in
94 countries.
NEWS SCAN
Sudan Airways has intro
duced a new air service linking
Khartoum with Aswan,
Egypt. The service from
Aswan to Khartoum operates
on Mondays, originating at
Cairo via Dongola. The
Khartoum-Aswan service
operates every Wednesday,
originating at Khartoum
via Dongola. In addition
Sudan Airways is also offer
ing daily Cairo-Khartoum
services.
FLIGHT International, 16 July 1983 117